As author, how can I cite my accepted but not yet published article (in press/forthcoming JMIR article)

If your article has been accepted, feel free to cite this article as "forthcoming" (or "in press", although in the age of electronic publishing, "forthcoming" is the preferred style).

While we usually try to publish accepted articles in the current or upcoming issue, we cannot provide you with the exact bibliographic information (volume, issue, article number) at the time of acceptance, but the correct way to cite a forthcoming article is to use its DOI (Digital Object Identifier).

For articles with the manuscript number up to 9999

The DOI consists of a prefix identifying the publisher (10.2196) and the journal-prefix (for example, for JMIR it is 10.2196/jmir.) and your manuscript number:

(note that the above URL linking to the so-called DOI resolver produces an error message at the time of acceptance before the paper is published, but immediately after the article is published (on the same day) it will point to the published article URL).

To find out the prefix for the journal it has been accepted for, please check the acceptance email (which contain the DOI) or check other articles in the same journal.

For articles with the manuscript number >=10000

The DOI now simply consists of a prefix identifying the publisher (10.2196) and your manuscript number (the journal prefix has been dropped since 2018 for articles with the ms ID>=10000):

(note that the above URL linking to the so-called DOI resolver produces an error message at the time of acceptance before the paper is published, but immediately after the article is published (on the same day) it will point to the published article URL).

Alternatively, you may simply cite the preprint, if you opted-in into exposing the submitted manuscript. The preprint DOI is http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/preprints.9390 where 9390 should be replaced with the manuscript ID. Note that after publication, the preprint will automatically have a link to the final "Version of Record" (VoR) once published (even if it is not a JMIR journal).

Using the DOI for in-press articles is a widely accepted standard, so even if you do not submit your follow-up paper to JMIR but somewhere else you should use this format.